During an interview with film news last week promoting Solomon Kane, James Purefoy had this to say about his role as Kantos Kan in John Carter Of Mars.
film news: John Carter of Mars is another pulp movie based on a novel. How far along is that in development?
James Purefoy: We're shooting. I shot two days last week. It's going to be gigantic.
film news: How has the success of Avatar affected it so far?
James Purefoy: Well, it's a weird world they're creating in John Carter. It's not nearly as hi-tech. In the books, the ships that they use are powered by solar tails. So, that's a very different kind of thing, as opposed to rocket power. We don't have that level of technology; we have Martian technology on John Carter. I don't know what it's going to look like. It's all on a green screen.I'm reacting to stuff that Andrew is telling me. There's also some motion capture. But I don't really know, to be honest. I'm there at the studio, there's a set and beyond that it's green screen. So, it's a mixture. You have real people and then there's mo-cap, and then there's models and puppets. I loved District 9 and the mixture of what they managed to do with mo-cap and puppets and models and any available technology they could get to create that world... it was fantastic. Why Sharlto Copley wasn't nominated for an Oscar this year I'll never know. It was a genius performance. You could not see where it began and ended. I loved how my sympathy went towards him without knowing why it happened.
John Carter Of Mars will star Taylor Kitsch, Mark Strong, Willem Dafoe, James Purefoy and Lynn Collins. It is based on the character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs and will be directed by Andrew Stanton.
I'm really starting to look forward to this film.